30. CHAPTER XXX: ANOTHER LOVE SCENE
(continued)

And then he strove to recall his mind and to think of other
affairs, his parish, his college, his creed--but his thoughts would
revert to Mrs Bold and the Flemish chieftain:

When we think upon it
How little flattering is woman's love,
Given commonly to whosoe'er is nearest
And propped with most advantage.

It was not that Mrs Bold should marry any one but him; he had not
put himself forward as a suitor; but that she should marry Mr
Slope--and so he repeated over and over again:

Outward grace Nor inward light is needful--day by day Men wanting
both are mated with the best And loftiest of God's feminine
creation, Whose love takes no distinction but of gender And
ridicules the very name of choice.

And so he went on troubled much in his mind.

He had but an uneasy ride of it that morning, and little good did
he do at St Ewold's.

The necessary alterations in his house were being fast completed,
and he walked through the rooms, and went up and down the stairs
and rambled through the garden; but he could not wake himself to
much interest about them. He stood still at every window to look
out and think upon Mr Slope. At almost every window he had before
stood and chatted with Eleanor. She and Mrs Grantly had been there
continually, and while Mrs Grantly had been giving orders, and
seeing that orders had been complied with, he and Eleanor had
conversed on all things appertaining to a clergyman's profession.
He thought how often he had laid down the law to her, and how
sweetly she had borne with somewhat dictatorial decrees. He
remembered her listening intelligence, her gentle but quick
replies, her interest in all that concerned the church, in all that
concerned him; and then he struck his riding whip against the
window sill, and declared to himself that it was impossible that
Eleanor Bold should marry Mr Slope.